How Did Sonia Sotomayor Succeed in the Unjust, Pre-Obama America?

May 26, 2009

RUSH: We’ll start in Chicago with Lee. Great that you called. Nice to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I think this is the perfect time for you to start your teaching tour and for Republicans to start your teaching tour with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, to explain to the American people why originalist justices are the only option because I think that attacking Sotomayor directly is going to make the Republicans look as the bad guys rather than proactively taking a step to explain why Article V of the Constitution should be the only means to amend the Constitution rather than a judicial fiat, and I want to know what you think about that.

RUSH: Well, you’re asking me two things: ‘Should the Republican Party oppose Sonia Sotomayor?’ and I will restate what I said in the first hour: Yes! Because opposing Sonia Sotomayor is how you tell the nation who Barack Obama is and isn’t. That’s really what we’re interested in having happen. Aren’t we interested in having the American people figure out who it is they really voted for? Well, Sonia Sotomayor illustrates who Obama is, and that’s the primary reason to oppose her because I don’t think she can be stopped. She’s got the votes in the Senate. So does Obama. It’s a cliche, but elections have consequences. As far as my teaching tour is concerned, I’ll take that under advisement. I reach a tremendous number of people via the EIB Network and the Golden EIB Microphone each and every day.

Now, you also wanted to talk about the originalists and why it is so crucial here that Republicans get the word out on her. Let me tell you why that’s going to be very hard for elected Republicans to do. If you didn’t hear it, let me see if we have it here in the sound bites. (muttering) Well, we don’t have the exact bite. Cookie, I’m not looking for it. You don’t need to give me the exact bite. But he started out, Obama did today, in making his announcement, he told a personal story that had everybody in the White House East Room crying. I mean, it’s a touching personal story. It is an amazing personal story, quintessentially American. It doesn’t say much about who she is, but it tells us a lot about this country. The thing about this story of hers that is really — it is dynamic. There’s no refuting it, and it’s very personal, and it’s very rewarding.

It’s a deeply American story — and I tell you that’s going to be, first and foremost, when we get to the Senate confirmation hearings, that’s what people are going to hear and that’s going to make it even harder for Republicans to oppose it, because Republicans stand for the American dream, the ordinary doing extraordinary things. She even used that phrase today to describe herself. I’m the first to use that phrase that I know of. ‘America is the place where ordinary people can become extraordinary, do extraordinary things.’ So that personal story of hers is going to silence a lot of Republican opposition, and that’s its purpose. What needs to be said about her personal story is that it all happened during a period of time Barack Obama is ripping to shreds and criticizing tremendously.

It happened during the eighties. It happened during the Reagan years. It happened during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. It happened during the Clinton years. Now, this is important to me because Barack Obama is a president who is apologizing for America everywhere he goes. America was imperfect. It was not good. It was not just. It is now because he’s been elected. But it wasn’t. And yet here is this minority female Latina. She’s Puerto Rican. She grew up in the South Bronx. Her father died when she was eight or nine. She was diagnosed with diabetes. As Obama said today, she was told that because of her diabetes and because of her minority status she’d never get anywhere and yet she got into Princeton and then she got into Yale Law and then she got on all these courts. She worked for Morgenthau in the DA’s office in Manhattan.

She’s done it all. That shouldn’t have been possible in the America Obama believes in. Sonia Sotomayor, if you listen to Barack Obama, should not be. We should never have heard of her. America was imperfect and unjust — and yet look at what she did, how she triumphed. I don’t think anybody’s going to get into how because it would only distract, but nevertheless she did. All of these policies there were supposedly anti-minority, all of them racism, all of the anti-womenism — all of these isms that were supposedly preventing minorities from getting anywhere — and Sonia Sotomayor rises to the highest level of the appellate court system all during Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Bush! It’s not possible. So in confronting the personal story that they’re going to tell about her, which will inspire some to tears…

And that story is designed to shut any critic up. ‘How could you oppose this woman? Have you no heart? Have you no compassion? Have you no empathy? Look at all that she’s had to overcome!’ So those will be the requirements. Those will be the qualifications that they say Sonia Sotomayor has. Then they’ll get to her judicial record which they’re going to have to kind of soft-pedal because she gets overturned all the time. She’s reprimanded by other Democrat judges for not being on point, for not being constitutional. She has said in public that a judge’s job is to make policy. Lady Justice is blind. You’re not supposed to know the race, the sex, the gender, the income level. All of these things that a litigant has doesn’t matter. Justice is blind. Her justice isn’t, and neither is Obama’s. So we got a very radical pick. We have a very radical president nominating a radical pick, and he’s using her story to continue to convey this notion of ’empathy,’ and that’s what we need on the court. ‘Cause, you know, there’s so much discrimination out there, and there’s so much unfairness.

There’s so much majority tyranny, it’s just so unfair, and we need people like Sonia Sotomayor to recognize it and to accommodate those realities in adjudicating cases. And yet with all this unfairness, all this discrimination, all of this imperfection, all the rotgut that America is, she managed to overcome it all. It shouldn’t be possible, should it? So if I were a Republican on the committee, I’d acknowledge the story. I congratulate her on the story. I congratulate her and her mother, her father for raising her right and her mother for inspiring her. And then I’d point out, this isn’t supposed to be possible in America prior to today, and yet look what she did. America is a great country. And then start talking about her lack of judicial qualifications to be on the Supreme Court. You can do it all. Will they? No. Because the Republican moderates are just dying to get as many Hispanic votes next election as they can. So they’ve been boxed in here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Todd in Detroit. Great to have you with us. Hello.

CALLER: Mega self-employed dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Hey listen, I just was wondering if we could do worse if Judge Sotomayor was rejected. I mean, the thought of Jennifer Granholm being appointed to the Supreme Court just frightens me, especially a life appointment. I mean, coming from the liberal utopia of Michigan, slash, Detroit I just couldn’t imagine it.

RUSH: Well, but wouldn’t you like to get rid of her?

CALLER: Yeah, but then we gotta deal her for life, and look at the damage she’s done to Michigan. Can you imagine?

RUSH: Yeah, but she’s just one vote on the court. In Michigan she’s the whole show, and we see what’s happened to Michigan.

CALLER: Well, she’s term limited, she’s out anyway, Rush.

RUSH: I really don’t think Granholm’s on anybody’s short list.

CALLER: Well, the way they talk around here, the liberals think she’s the best thing since Swiss cheese.

RUSH: Of course, so is Sotomayor. I tell you who everybody thought it was going to be, was Diane Wood. Look, I don’t think you can — Todd, this is really tough — you can’t do worse than this and the reason that you can’t do worse than this is that this woman does not use the law. I don’t care what liberal judge Obama finds, it’s going to be bad for the law. It doesn’t matter who it is. This woman may be as radically bad as the Supreme Court could get simply because of her jurisprudence. She’s been smacked down by appellate courts, by the Supreme Court. She’s been smacked down by fellow judges on the appellate court, Jose Cabranes. We went through it all in the first hour.

But, you know, here’s the thing. I want to deal with this theory, ‘Hey, she’s better than a lot of others we could get.’ Do you realize that the purpose here is not really stopping her because it isn’t going to happen. I’m just being realistic. I’m not trying to be negative, but you do have an opportunity here or at least the Republican Party has an opportunity here to educate the American people about Obama and who Obama is via his picks. You could do that with whoever he picks. If he woulda chosen Diane Wood, you coulda done the same thing. If he woulda chosen Granholm, coulda done the same thing. That’s the opportunity that exists here. You always have to be positioning yourself for the future. There are more elections coming up, 2010, 2012. Votes in the Senate, she’s probably going to get 75 or 80 votes in the Senate. I can’t see the Republicans filibustering this in the committee. She’s Hispanic and she’s female. There’s no way they’re going to stop this because they don’t want to. They’re trying to get the Hispanic vote. Anyway, Todd, I appreciate it.